


A Thousand Deaths

by TedWrites



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, I wrote this all in one sitting, I wrote this because I saw a post on Tumblr, Introspection, Sleepy Bois Inc are one big family, Temporary Character Death, Tubbo as an honorary SBI member, and I had to, basically technoblade thinking about his emotions, block men, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26599570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TedWrites/pseuds/TedWrites
Summary: He served obediently, with undying loyalty to a creature of chaos.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Dave | Technoblade, Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson, Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 16
Kudos: 530





	A Thousand Deaths

**Author's Note:**

> Hi :) This isn't my first work on here but I got locked out of my other account so here we are.   
> This was mostly inspired by this tumblr post right here: https://beacon-lamp.tumblr.com/post/629761194706812928/ok-im-just-spitballing-here-but-technoblade-has (idk how to imbed links i'm a dumbass) so please give them credit :)

There is an order to the world, a way in which things are built, carefully, slowly, agonisingly, just one wrong breath away from crumbling. There is a weight in the words you’re not supposed to utter- a weight that bears a warning. And there’s a shadow on the earth, a place of no love and no life, a place where nothing ever blossoms. It is natural, it is ancient, it is unchangeable. 

And Technoblade really _tried_ \- he tried to change it, he tried to make rotten soil bloom into pretty flowers and to make the words pass past his aching throat in a way that didn’t leave him coughing blood. He tried and then he failed. He failed over and over and over again until he could no longer try. Until his aching bones crumbled into dust under his flesh, until his eyes dried of tears and life and until his soul died inside his chest. 

It hurt, but years of pain dulled until it was nothing but a dull thud, like a headache, like a bad joint after the rain. Like an almost healed wound, a broken nail. It felt endless- it _was_ endless. Years dripped into decades and then millennia and then he stopped counting. He stopped counting the days, the months, the dead bodies. 

His god, unlike all other gods, was, above all things, cruel. He wore that vicious brutality like a badge of honor, he used the blood of his victims to spread his name, his cult, his power. A god born from war and famine and broken promises. An ancient god with no place in the world of the living. A curse that rose from the shadows, slowly, quietly, deadly. 

And Technoblade served. He served obediently, with undying loyalty to a creature of chaos. He became a killing puppet. He gave away his soul, his heart, his humanity. He gave away his life for a god he never believed in. And then he tried to escape, he tried to leave it all behind, he tried to cheat and lie his way out of the deal he himself had forged. But the god is smart, he sees beyond anything a human could weave. 

He had been promised fortune. He had signed his life away for one purpose only- he had wished desperately, passionately that no harm would ever befall his friends. His family. He had given away everything he owned for their sake. Everything but the endless bounds of _love_ he held for them, love he kept to himself, private, but which would sometimes slip in the form of eyes too fond or a small smile with too many secrets behind it. 

But the god was cunning and cruel. He fed off desperation, off all the negativity and doubts in a broken heart. He thrived when others suffered. And so, Technoblade was given the lead role in the biggest tragedy the world had ever seen.

When he read their names, like swallowing icy cubes of poison, he refused to believe it. Of course, it must have been a different Wilbur, a different Tommy, a different Tubbo a different Philza. He reasoned with himself and he tried to trick himself into an unstable state of peace. And then the god laughed in his tired face, with words that cut deeper than knives, with arrows that hit past the skin straight into the broken pieces of his heart. 

“You foolish human! For your insolence, for daring to go against me, you shall now pay for all eternity!” 

And he was _fuming_. His eyes filled with a rage so fiery, so vicious, so deadly the god almost wavered. But then his bones broke and his skin cracked and his blood burned. And then the pain came. _Oh, the pain!_ So breathtakingly, maddeningly fitting. He wished for death like he never wished for anything before. He wished for everything to stop, the burning under his skin, the needles in his bones, the heartbreak. He was fading, quickly, smoothly, like he was never there. His eyes shriveled under his eyelids, his teeth rotted and fell out one by one, his tongue swallowed like a drowned corpse. His body was coming undone, it was breaking apart piece by agonising piece. 

And yet, he didn’t die. 

He _couldn’t_ die. 

The god held onto him with cruel desperation, like an abusive wife that stepped just a bit too far over the line. And he hated him for it. He hated so much he thought all of his mind would turn into one big, terrifying ball of wrath. 

_ And then he drove the sword through his friends’ heart.  _

He watched their eyes- confused, sad, betrayed, angry. He wondered what his eyes held, what he looked like to them in their final moments. He took it all in, the way their blood felt on his skin, the way the blade of the sword was just dull enough to feel bones cracking, the way the last breath pushed against his trembling hands. And he kept quiet. He allowed the loneliness to wash over him in waves of numbness and he kept quiet. 

But then his friends were back, again, with their big smiles and too warm hugs and eyes that should look at him in fear, in anger. But they held nothing but love, a love so unconditional and so pure he couldn’t help but break. He broke in a way he never thought he would. He had been through hell, he had felt pain no man ever had, he had given away everything he thought made him human. And yet, he had never been hurt like this, so close to every last bit of the human in him that refused to die. And for a split second, for a foolish, naive second, he thought that was the end of it. He thought he was finally free, free from the heavy shackles of his own insolence. He thought that maybe, just maybe, the god felt pity and allowed him to return to the one thing he cared for the most.

But then their names appeared on the list once more. And then once again. And again. And again. And every time, like a dutiful soldier, a one man army, he drove the swords through their heart, watched the emotions play out and freeze on their dead faces and buried them in a cemetery for all his dead friends- for all his broken hearts. 

He couldn’t escape the circle. He couldn’t break away. He couldn’t stop the blade from doing the one thing he wished it won’t. It always haunted him at night, when every living soul was asleep. He couldn’t sleep, so the memories haunted him. Wilbur’s soft humming as he strummed the guitar. _Wilbur’s wide eyes as he stabbed him._ Tommy’s obnoxious yet endearing yelling. _Tommy’s wheezed “How could you?”._ Tubbo’s quiet giggles as he played with the animals around him. _Tubbo’s head flying in the air, eyes full of anger, body clutching his friend’s limp body._ Philza’s proud smile as he stroked his head in a way his dad never did, full of love, all for a traitor. _Philza’s sad, bloodied smile, like he understood, as his guts spilled on the floor._

He would think about it, in the hours no one would dare lay eyes on him. 

And then, one night, as he was quietly waiting for his friends’ name to once more find their way on that accursed hit list of his, something happened. Something that threw his world out of its natural axis, something that has never before happened. He took a glance, and then another, and then he wiped incredulously at his eyes and looked again.

In bold, fancy letters was written a name he had never before seen. _“Dream”_. All these years, all the dead bodies, all the broken hearts, and never once had this name shown on the list. And somehow, it bore a sort of reverence, an air of finality, a sense of danger dipped in hope. Change was near. And he feared the outcome. He feared his fated meeting with the man, he feared what would happen if he faced him. 

But he was a servant of the Blood God. It wasn’t his place to fear, to worry. His orders were clear: dispose of Dream, sacrifice his life to the god above. 

The search proved difficult, but his friends helped without asking a single question, like they knew, like they had _always_ known, like they remembered all the lives they wasted because of him, like they forgave him anyways. Eventually, it was Dream that found him.

It was another night, like all the others, with air that was just a bit too chilly and stars that peered down at him, judging, unmoving, dead. He had been sitting under the heavy leaves of an old oak tree, far from his group that huddled close to the fire for warmth as they slept. He looked over their sleeping forms, over Wilbur’s curled body, over Tommy and Tubbo’s cuddling and over Philza’s silent, protective arm wrapped around the youngest two. The fire cracked menacingly, but not at them. _It was never at them._

And then the grass shuffled and the woods quieted down. And then there he was, glad in a green cloak, hidden behind a mask. He looked calm, content, at peace.

“So you’re a servant of the god?” he murmured, voice deep but not unkind.

“You must be my next target.” Technoblade got up slowly, clumsily, bones burning. His sword was drawn.

“Easy now…” the man, Dream, raised his hands in defence. “You don’t have to do it, you know? The killing.” Even without seeing his eyes, technoblade knew they were filled with pity.

Technoblade fixed him with a glare brimming with barely contained wrath. “You think I didn’t try?! You think I want to do this?! He _owns_ me. There is no escape from this hell. Once you die, my-” the words died in his throat. He coughed awkwardly. 

Dream sighed, hands now lowered, body relaxed. “Then those you love the most in this world will be next. They’re _always_ next, aren’t they? And it never hurts any less. Every time, the wound is fresh and it never stops bleeding. “ The man spoke with such confidence, with such familiarity Technoblade almost broke. 

“And how would _you_ know anything about how it feels?” 

“Because I was like you once. I was a servant too, and just like you, I fooled myself with words like ‘duty’ and ‘fate’. Fate’s bullshit, man. You don’t have to listen to a phony god.” Dream lifted his mask just enough to show a kind, crooked smile and one big, happy eye. The face of a man that knew pain, a man that grew past all his sorrows. Technoblade allowed his sword to falter and then fall to the ground with a muffled thud. 

“How…” he was at a loss for words. “ How did you do it? What did it take? How… How can I stop hurting them?” 

Dream looked at him for a while, in deep thought. His smile was gone and his eye peered at him with a pity so raw it almost brought Technoblade to tears. And then he spoke. 

“ _You have to let them know_.” his voice was hauntingly serene. “You have to tell them about your deal and about all the times you’ve been forced to drive your sword through their chest. You have to tell them about all the pain and all the broken pieces you’ve kept hidden.” 

Technoblade shuddered. He didn’t know if he was strong enough, if he could pull off such a feat. He was barely holding on, a shell of what he used to be, taped together, like he had broken one too many times, seconds away from the final crumble. He didn’t know if he could allow himself the courage to utter the words he had kept hidden in his chest all these years. He threw a lost, hopeless look towards Dream. 

“I know it’s hard.” the man continued. “I know you’re scared. I was just like you. For years I was stuck in an endless cycle of suffering. I have stabbed my closest friends more times than there’s living souls on this earth. I couldn’t stop myself, the pain was too much. I tried to, the first dozens of times. But then I _couldn’t_ \- I was too weak to keep going.” His hands shook at his sides. “And then one day I just... told them. The guilt was too much and I just caved. I told them what I have been doing, I confessed all my sins. And, like the loving fools they were, they forgave me.” and then, in a softer tone. “ _They’ll forgive you too_. You did this all for them. They love you too much to not understand.” 

And somehow, that was all the support Technoblade needed. He felt, deep within his tired soul, that it was finally the end. He was offered one last chance, a true path towards redemption. And he would be damned if he let another drop of his friends’ blood drip. The first thing tomorrow, as they awake, he will gather them around and lay himself bare in front of them and gamble it all on his love and on the chance that they love him just as much. 

“Your friends…” Technoblade started. “What are their names?” 

Dream giggled. “Sapnap and George. Two idiots that argue too much and love so, so strongly. They’re everything I have. They’re my brothers-” he stopped to consider, words falling short of the emotion. Technoblade understood. “They’re _more_ than my brothers. For them, I would risk it all once more. I would face hell again if it made them happy.” 

There was a fondness in his voice that felt almost too intimate, too private to be shared with a stranger. But Technoblade knew he couldn’t help it. They loved in a similar way- too much to contain. So their love spilled from their lips and through their fond eyes and they made rotten soil blossom in colors so vibrant the skies wept in awe. And they would turn the world onto its head just to see their loved ones smile. 

“ _Yeah,_ ” he whispered. “ _I would do it all again for them_.”


End file.
